underneath the mistletoe last night
by andawaywego
Summary: "'Don't tell me you have some sort of Santa fetish," Quinn continues, looking horrified. "How am I just now hearing about this'" Faberry. Sequel to "now i get my fortune told for free". Post-Season six.


**A/N:** little christmas fic.

christmas in july is a thing, right?

set a few months after "now i get my fortune told for free". you don't _have_ to read that first, but you might be a bit confused if you don't.

...

 _underneath the mistletoe last night_

 _.._

That first Christmas that Rachel and Quinn are dating, Rachel, somehow, ropes Quinn into yet another homemade costume.

"You'll look dashing," Rachel says, holding up the red Santa suit to her girlfriend and sighing dreamily. "And I've always had a thing for Santa."

Quinn is about to protest the costume when Rachel's final statement sinks in. "You've _what_?" she asks, frowning a bit.

Rachel turns bright red, even though she'd obviously _meant_ to say it, and pulls down the costume, draping it over her arm.

"Don't tell me you have some sort of Santa fetish," Quinn continues, looking horrified. "How am I _just now_ hearing about this?"

"I do not have a Santa fetish, Lucy Quinn Fabray!"

That's how Quinn knows she's in trouble—Rachel only uses her full name when she means business.

She should probably take a step back and drop it, just so she's safe from bodily harm, but it's so good that she can't.

"Just admit it, Berry. Admit that you want me to wear this costume so that I can shove my presents in your stocking."

A bit too far, maybe.

Especially considering that, only two months in, they haven't _actually_ had sex.

Gotten close—definitely. But still mostly dry, at least metaphorically, on that front.

Rachel, if possible, turns redder.

"It was simply a childhood whimsy, okay?" she says.

"Dear God. You were a more disturbed child than I thought."

Quinn is pretending to look disgusted, but, really, she's only teasing.

She just wants Rachel to—and there it is.

The famous, petulant Rachel Berry foot stomp.

Rachel crosses her arms over the costume and says, "That is it. You are sleeping on the couch tonight!"

"I have my own bedroom, Rachel," Quinn reminds her, but Rachel doesn't seem to care, already storming into her own bedroom and slamming the door shut.

Quinn picks up the costume from where Rachel had tossed it onto the couch mid-Diva Storm-Out and ends up holding it up against herself in the bathroom mirror.

She shrugs in the mirror—she doesn't look half-bad.

.

On Christmas Eve, Quinn stands in the Anderson-Hummel's living room—dressed to the nines like Santa Claus—and holding a large pillowcase full of the gifts Kurt and Blaine and deemed 'from Santa.'

She pulls the fake beard away from her face, scratching her chin vigorously with her free hand and watches Rachel, who is standing across from her, texting Kurt.

"I'm taking this beard off, Rachel," Quinn says quietly. "I swear to God. It's too itchy."

"Stop being a baby," Rachel scolds—without looking up from her phone, mind you.

Quinn sighs and rocks back on her heels. "It's nice that my actual state of discomfort is less important to you than whatever it is you're saying to Kurt right now."

Rachel finally looks up from her phone, clicking it into standby and shoving it into the back pocket of her jeans. "I was letting him know that we're almost in position and he should wake Mason up soon," she tells her, taking a few steps forward and tugging Quinn's hand away from her face. "Want me to kiss it better?"

Quinn should probably tell her to shove it because _why_ does Rachel insist on dressing her up like a doll?

But Rachel is wearing shimmering lip gloss and all the lights in the living room are out except for the ones on the Christmas tree behind them and Quinn hasn't gotten used to actually, finally being able to kiss the other woman yet, after years of having waited around for the opportunity.

"What if he comes down soon?" she asks, nodding back towards the stairs.

She's trying to be cautious but it's hard when Rachel is leaning forward like that.

"Are you implying that I can't be quick?" she asks, jutting out her lower lip.

That's exactly what Quinn was implying, actually.

Rachel _can't_ be quick. She's proven that enough over the past two months that they've been together.

It's possible that it's because the two of them have been waiting for this for so long—though Quinn is a bit foggy on Rachel's side of things—or because they're finally getting it right, but, so far, it's been hard to remind themselves to go slow.

It's like being a crazy, hormonal teenager again.

Which, honestly, Quinn thinks is a bit pathetic for two twenty-nine-year-olds.

But now Rachel's so close that Quinn can feel her breath puffing out a little and, is that a sprig of mistletoe above their heads?

She relinquishes control and lets Rachel kiss her, lets Rachel tug her closer by the hips and run her fingertips over the fuzzy, red fabric of the Santa jacket.

.

It's possible that Jesse had warned her before she even knew about Rachel's thing for Santa, at his annual Christmas party a few days before Rachel had finished the costume.

Quinn wasn't paying much attention at the time though, still vexed that she'd even needed to show up, and had spent the majority of the evening by the refreshment table drinking some Rudolph's Red Pinot Noir and watching her girlfriend and her girlfriend's ex-husband across the room.

Mady, Jesse's girlfriend, had found her about twenty minutes after Rachel had abandoned her—meaning Jesse had tugged her by the elbow to say hello to some former castmates.

"I don't like it, either," she'd said, staring in the same direction Quinn was. "I mean, you know, I trust them and everything and I know it's over—Hell, it's probably good they're friends and not, like, mortal enemies, you know?"

Quinn merely grunted in response.

"But, I just don't like looking at them together," Mady concluded.

"I know the feeling."

"You know, he has no problem with the two of you being together, right?"

Quinn sipped at her wine and shrugged, looking down at her shoes.

"Seriously." Mady bumped Quinn's shoe with her own. "You know what he said to me after Rachel called him to let him know?"

Quinn shrugged.

"'Finally, right?'"

At this, Quinn looked up, looking stunned. "He said that?"

She hadn't known that Jesse had been particularly privy to her feelings for Rachel in the time that he'd been with the other woman.

It certainly hadn't seemed that way, what with him always dragging Rachel off whenever she'd made plans with Quinn, or anyone else for that matter.

He'd pretty much monopolized her time from the moment they'd rekindled their long-dead romance.

So, yeah. That was a little surprising.

It was Mady who shrugged next. "Yeah," she says. "Now, are we gonna stand over here and sulk over our significant others all night or are we gonna go over there and actually spend time with them?"

Quinn, in much lighter spirits, had followed the other woman over to Jesse and Rachel and blushed when Rachel had greeted her by wrapping an arm around her waist.

"Hey, baby," she'd said, pecking Quinn's cheek—right there in front of Jesse. "Where've you been?"

The evening had been a bit better then, until Rachel had looked over Jesse's maroon dinner jacket and beret-styled Santa hat, saying something like, "Why didn't you dress like traditional Santa?"

Jesse had laughed. "You would have liked that, wouldn't you?"

Quinn had frowned when Rachel had blushed, averting her eyes.

"Stop it," Rachel had said and then Jesse turned his eyes to Quinn.

"Did she tell you, yet?" he'd asked and Quinn just quirked an eyebrow in a silent challenge.

"Tell me what?"

Jesse laughed again and said, "Oh, you'll find out, I'm sure."

And Quinn had wanted to push the issue, but the topic had quickly been turned away from that and to a new show that was opening in a few months.

Quinn had tried to get Rachel to talk about it on the cab ride home, but the brunette had been tight-lipped about whatever it was Jesse had been talking about.

That is, until the night she'd shown Quinn the Santa costume she'd made for her.

.

"We have to stop," Rachel whispers against Quinn's lips as Quinn presses her backwards into the cushions of Kurt and Blaine's couch.

"So, tell me to," Quinn murmurs, moving her lips down to latch onto Rachel's neck and smiling a little into the smooth skin she finds there when Rachel groans a little too loudly.

" _Mason_ ," Rachel presses, but she's not exactly making any effort to push Quinn away.

"What's that, Mrs. Claus?" Quinn asks, moving back to smirk at Rachel. "I didn't quite catch that."

Rachel groans at the nickname and tugs Quinn's lips back by gripping the other woman's furry, white lapels and tugging her back down.

.

In the end, it was a big misunderstanding.

Rachel explained it when Quinn snuck into her room that night after the whole costume debacle and climbed under the covers with her.

It wasn't a sick R-rated sex fantasy, but a mere G-rated one where Rachel became Mrs. Claus and baked cookies for the elfs and no one said a word if she gained weight.

A perfect world, apparently.

"It was just until my dads told me he's not real," Rachel said and Quinn bit her lip to keep from teasing her, asking something like, 'When you were, what? Nineteen?'

Because, as much as she loves to rile Rachel up, she also loves being snuggled to sleep and she was going to have to choose one or the other right then.

"And, of course, then I realized that the elfs must _not_ have been working for free and that started my year-long protest of Christmas in general because of slave labor."

Quinn had smirked into Rachel's hair and tightened her hold around her girlfriend's hips, drawing her closer to her chest.

"Are you really not going to wear it?" Rachel asked, turning a bit so she can see Quinn in the darkness.

Quinn hummed sleepily. "If it'll turn you on, baby," she'd joked and Rachel slapped her lightly on the arm. "Yeah, I'll wear it. But only because Mason's dads are apparently incapable of it and I want him to be happy."

That was the ticket, apparently.

Because, the next thing Quinn knew, Rachel was on top of her and kissing her senseless.

.

It had been Blaine and Kurt's idea, the whole Santa-Christmas-Eve thing.

They'd called Rachel a month or so before and asked if she could dress like Santa so that they could send Mason down and prove that Santa really _was_ real on Christmas Eve.

"It would really make his holiday, y'know?" Kurt had said on the phone. "We'll even nudge him awake and send him downstairs, okay? I'll tell him he can sleep in our bed because it's Christmas or something.

Rachel, always a big proponent of the true Christmas spirit—despite being Jewish—had agreed immediately, but, ultimately, decided she was too short.

That was where Quinn came in.

.

Upstairs, Mason stirs from his spot between his fathers in their bed.

"Daddy?" he whispers, grasping Kurt's face in his hands and peering down at it.

Kurt, who is pretending to be asleep—having received, just moments before, a text from Rachel saying that everything was in place and promptly shaking his son just hard enough to wake him—mumbles some nonsense.

He kicks Blaine's foot under the covers and the fact that Blaine kicks back immediately lets him know that his husband is awake too.

"Daddy, someone's here," Mason says, squeezing Kurt's cheeks a little too roughly.

"What, Mason?" Blaine asks, placing a delibarately sleepy-sounding drawl to the words.

"Someone's down there," Mason tells him, releasing Kurt's face and turning to his other dad.

"No," Blaine tells him, smacking his lips. "There's no one here. Go to sleep, buddy."

"No, Dad!" Mason's voice is sounding more frantic. "It's Santa!"

"It's not Santa," Kurt mumbles, trying his best to sound like he's half-asleep. "Back to sleep."

Mason huffs in a perfect imitation of his surrogate mother and crosses his arms with clumsy, uncoordinated movements.

Kurt and Blaine close their eyes and wait for it, smiling when they feel he dip in the bed followed by hurried, little footsteps down the hall.

"Jackpot," Kurt whispers when Mason is gone and Blaine grins at his husband and lifts an arm to wrap around his back.

.

"Mmm, Quinn, baby. Later, okay?"

Even as she says it, Rachel is nibbling on Quinn's lower lip, smiling at the slight tickle of the beard.

"Really?" Quinn asks, sounding both nervous and excited at the same time—an impressive feat for someone who is now grazing their teeth on someone else's collarbone.

"You keep doing that, definitely," Rachel groans.

And Quinn is definitely planning on continuing to do just that.

Except they're interrupted by a shocked gasp from the stairway.

Like they've been caught on fire, Rachel and Quinn rip back away from each other and turn their heads to see a frightened looking Mason sitting at the top of the stairs, gripping the posts of the staircase.

"Santa," he whispers.

The next thing they know, he's standing and scurrying back down the hallway.

"Oh, fuck," Quinn mumbles, scrubbing her face with her hands.

Rachel whacks her in the pillow that's taped to her stomach under her costume. "Language!"

"Rachel, he just walked in on Santa making out with his aunt. I hardly think me saying 'fuck' is going to scar him any more than he's already been scarred!"

Rachel sighs and flops back down onto the couch. "Touché."

.

Mason hadn't originally noticed any change in their relationship at the beginning of November.

Not that three-and-a-half-year olds really notice subtle changes like hand-holding or diminishing space between two people in seated positions.

He actually hadn't noticed until he'd seen them kiss one night when they were babysitting for Kurt and Blaine's date night.

"Are you gonna get married?" he'd asked, ceasing building with his Legos in favor of staring at them in wonderment.

Rachel had blushed and Quinn had just smiled.

"Like my dads?" he'd clarified.

"Maybe," had been Quinn's answer, looking over at Rachel and squeezing her hand.

Mason had seemed to like that answer and had spent the next hour before his bedtime planning their wedding—he wanted them to both be sitting on camels and for dinner at the reception to be Trix yogurt.

Kurt had found the drawings his son had made on the coffee table when they'd returned home and held one up for them to see.

"Rachel, Quinn—darlings?" He'd eyed the misshapen camel with the blonde blob of a woman perched on it and the hearts all around it. "Do I dare ask?"

"Your son planned our wedding," Rachel told him as Quinn helped her into her coat.

"Ah, I see." Kurt smirked at his husband.

"Are you going with camels instead of doves?" Blaine asked. "He's really into camels these days."

"Yes, and we're going with brown as one of our wedding colors. To match," Quinn cut in and they'd laughed because it was funny.

It was funny that Mason was so devoted to their relationship that he wanted to make sure their wedding was perfect.

At least to his imaginative standards.

Of course, right now, it's not all that funny.

.

"What the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks happened down here?" Kurt demands in a hushed voice when he storms down the steps just a minute or two after Mason disappeared. "Why is Mason crying hysterically and saying something about 'Santa' being evil and Aunt Rachel and Aunt Quinn not getting married?"

Rachel's eyes are wide and Quinn frowns, hands on her hips.

"He's crying?" Quinn asks. "Come _on_."

"What happened?" Kurt repeats.

"He might have, um…seen me…kissing Santa or-or something," Rachel answers, not able to meet his eyes.

Kurt looks angry for about three more seconds and then he starts laughing so hard that he has to place a hand on Quinn to stay upright.

Quinn gives Rachel a horrified look and gets a confused shrug in return.

"He-he-he," Kurt stammers, still laughing. "Are you—"

He cuts himself off and wipes at his eyes and, after a moment or two, he calms down enough to finish his thought.

"Rachel Berry, only _you_ would get stuck in a traditional Christmas carol cliché," and Rachel looks offended.

"I certianly didn't _plan_ for this to happen!" she tells him. "Quinn, tell him—"

She looks to her girlfriend for assistance, but receives none when she finds the other woman laughing to.

"Quinn, stop laughing! It isn't funny!"

"It's a little funny," Kurt tells her and Quinn nods between laughs, holding her hand up and pinching her fingers in the 'little bit' gesture.

Rachel rolls her eyes and looks away, sinking down into the couch a bit.

"What?" she asks Kurt when Quinn has stopped laughing. "I thought you'd be more mad about this. I mean, we ruined Christmas forever."

"Oh, pfft." Kurt waves her comment away. "I'm a very gifted story-teller." He looks over at Quinn and adds, "Mason only likes bedtime stories that _don't_ come from books, so I've gotten pretty good."

"What does that mean?" Rachel asks, sounding a bit more hopeful than put-out now.

"Whatever I tell him, he'll eat it right up."

Rachel looks at Quinn in asksance again but gets a shrug in return.

.

They end up telling him that it was Aunt Quinn dressed as Santa—with his permission of course.

"He had so many houses to get to this year, that he needed extra help some places," Kurt says. "So Aunt Quinn was just delivering the presents to our neighborhood for him."

Mason, who is sitting on Blaine's lap in his parents' bed, looks between Rachel and Quinn, the latter of whom has removed the fake beard.

"Yeah?" he asks and everyone nods in unison. "Are you still gonna get married?"

Quinn goes to shut that thought down, embarrassed because, even though they're only two months in, the answer is definitely _yes, yes, yes_.

But Kurt gives her a look that basically says, 'You already fucked up enough tonight, tell the kid what he wants to hear.'

So she ends up saying, "Um, yes," and feels Rachel's arm brush against hers as she looks away.

Mason seems relieved to hear this and giggles when Blaine tickles his sides and says, "Hear that, big guy. It's okay."

Kurt shoos them a little later and Rachel kisses Quinn when they're out of the cab and in their apartment again, tugging Quinn's costume jacket off.

"Now, where were we?" she asks, running her hands up Quinn's sides as she backs the other woman into one of their bedrooms—it doesn't matter which—and towards the bed.

And, yeah. 'Okay' pretty much sums it up.

'Better than okay' might even be more fitting.

.

A few years and more than a few handmade costumes later, Quinn pulls out the Santa suit again and they relive the whole night sans the embarrassment.

She makes sure Rachel keeps her lips to herself when their two-year-old, Emmy, comes out to investigate the noise.

"Ho, ho, ho," Quinn laughs when she hears their daughter's surprised squeak, bending down to place some presents under the tree.

Emmy doesn't stay long and is back in her bedroom, excitedly waiting under the covers when Rachel "coincidentally" goes in to check on her a few minutes later.

"She's delirious with excitement right now," Rachel tells her when they're in bed that night and the Santa suit is hung up in the back of their closet.

"Damn straight she is," Quinn says. "I'm an amazing Santa."

Rachel climbs into bed beside her wife and kisses her, hard. "You sure are," she purrs, moving so that she's straddling the other woman.

They're halfway undressed and panting when Quinn says, "You don't want me to wear the suit for this, do you? Because I can grab it. It's right in—"

Rachel rolls off of her when she says this and turns her back to her angrily.

"Baby, I was kidding," Quinn whispers, laughing as she presses a kiss to her wife's neck.

"It's not a fetish, Quinn!" Rachel says and Quinn can't stop laughing. "It's not even a sex thing!"

"I know it's not. I was teasing you."

They're silent for a while and then Quinn's says, "So, are we not going to have sex tonight, because I was getting kind of—"

Once again, Rachel cuts her off—this time with her lips. "Oh, we're finishing. But you better just shut up."

Quinn smirks against Rachel's mouth. "Make me," she whispers.

And Rachel does make her, actually, despite all the teasing she's endured over the years since telling Quinn about the Santa thing.

In fact, it's something of a Christmas miracle.

…

 **title from "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"**


End file.
